LOS ANGELES – The historic significance of the Democratic presidential race came into clear focus at the final debate Thursday between the two candidates left standing – Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton – who smoothed over their recent spats and turned most of their attacks on Republicans.

Clinton, receiving the most extended applause and laughs of the night, put it this way: “It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush and it might take another one to clean up after the second.”

Obama took on Republican front-runner John McCain, saying he changed his tune on President Bush’s tax cuts and “somewhere along the line the ‘straight talk express’ lost some wheels.”

The scene of a black man and a white woman competing for the Democratic nomination brought a huge crowd to the Kodak Theater, home to Hollywood’s Oscars, and included actress Diane Keaton, singer Stevie Wonder and director Steven Spielberg.

“Look at us. We are not more of the same,” Clinton said of her and Obama, making a comparison to the four white men still competing for the GOP nomination. “We are not more of the same. We will change our country.”

It was a sharp contrast to the Republican debate Wednesday at the hilltop Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, which was closed to the public. There, GOP front-runners McCain and Mitt Romney took feisty jabs at each other through the evening.

The tone of the Democrats’ debate Thursday contrasted with the harsh words the campaigns have exchanged in recent weeks, which has brought expressions of dismay from many Democrats.

Clinton and Obama sought to distinguish their positions from each other during the two-hour debate, but they also steadily nodded their heads in agreement with each other, perhaps making the choice even more difficult for voters.

When CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer tried to stir up the candidates at one point, telling Clinton that Obama just took “a clear swipe at you,” she responded, “Really? We’re having a wonderful time.”

But in discussing the Iraq war, in particular, they outlined their differences.

Obama, heralding his early opposition to the war, made perhaps his most memorable comment of the night, saying that while Clinton may be “ready on day one” as she has claimed, “it is important to be right on day one.”

Obama has consistently tried to distinguish himself as the candidate for change who will look to the future, not back to the years of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

“It’s not a function just of looking backward,” Obama said, “it’s a function of looking forward and how are we going to be making a series of decisions in a very dangerous world.”

The country needs strong leadership, he said, and “that’s what I intend to provide.”

Clinton was left to explain her early vote supporting the resolution on Iraq military action. She said she made a “reasoned judgment” with the information at the time.

Knowing that Saddam Hussein was a “megalomaniac, knowing he would not want to compete for attention with Osama bin Laden, there were legitimate concerns about what he might do,” she said.

While the candidates agreed on many aspects of immigration reform, including requiring illegal immigrants already in the country to pay fines and learn to speak English before being granted citizenship, they differed on allowing illegal immigrants to have driver’s licenses.

Obama said he would allow driver’s licenses so that if illegal immigrants get in car accidents, they won’t “hit and run.”

Clinton said she would first start immigrants on a pathway to citizenship before allowing licenses.

When responding to a question about whether American citizens are competing with illegal immigrants for jobs, Obama said that to suggest the country’s current economic woes are attributable to illegal immigrants is “scapegoating.”

But Clinton said, after having met a black construction worker on the campaign trail who lost work to day laborers, that it’s a problem.

“There are job losses,” she said. “We should be honest about that.”

But she put more blame on employers who hire and “exploit” illegal immigrants.

In the end, Clinton said that with the two of them on stage Thursday night, “neither of us would have predicted – you know, not very long ago – we would be sitting here. It’s a great tribute to the Democratic Party and to America.”

But, Blitzer asked, would they consider running together on the Democratic ticket as a “dream team”?

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